


It's Only Fingerlengths

by vinnie2757



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, F/M, Howling Commandos - Freeform, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5699737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinnie2757/pseuds/vinnie2757
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early in the spring of '33, Monty meets a Girl. Not just any Girl. THE Girl.</p><p>Naturally, ten years later, the Commandos have something to say about it.</p><p>[The story of how certified bag of cats James Montgomery Falsworth convinced the best girl in the universe to not only marry him, but stay married to him.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Where Monty Meets The Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScarfLoor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarfLoor/gifts), [finnnorgana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnnorgana/gifts).



> I accidentally OC'd, and she's here to stay. This entire fic is wilsontoyourhouse's fault, because she bullied me into posting it. Updates are going to be sporadic, but there'll be updates I guess??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first meeting, the first dance, and the first introduction Monty has to the love of his life.

When Monty is nineteen, early in the spring of thirty-three, he meets Heather Grace Martin for the first time. She’s sat on a bench, bloody-nosed and teary-cheeked, picking gravel out of her palms. He bites his cheek, because he’s already late for work – his uncle won’t mind, because an Upset Lady is more than enough reason to run late for work – and he could be here all day. He’s needed at work, because God forbid his uncle actually do any work when he’s not there, but the girl’s sniffling, and her picking is making it _worse_.

‘Are you alright?’ he asks her, inching his trousers to crouch at her feet, peering up at her bowed head.

‘Do I look alright?’ she sniffs back, indignant, and then she seems to remember herself; her accent is industry thick, country broad, a born-and-bred resident, a counterweight to his accent, far too refined to belong here, and yet here he is, on his haunches at her feet, expression open, amiable.

‘You look like you took a tumble,’ he teases, and reaches for her hands, which flinch away for a second before opening up, allowing him to ease his fingers in around hers, open her palms so he can see the damage.

They’re grazed and dirty, blood spotting where the gravel took up a new home, and he offers her a smile.

‘I tripped,’ she says, ‘caught my foot on a cobble and down I went.’

‘Poor dear,’ he says, without an ounce of sarcasm. He shifts his weight onto his knees, sure he’s too close now, and draws her hands closer, presses a kiss to both her palms.

When he glances up, having not looked away from her hands, her cheeks are red, her lip clamped between her teeth, and she’s beautiful, he thinks, in a way very few women are, doe-eyed and coal-haired, like something out of a fairy tale his sister used to read him when he was so small as to not care about it.

‘My name’s James,’ he offers, because that’s polite, and he thinks he should probably be polite to pretty ladies.

As soon as his name leaves his mouth, she groans, eyes rolling back into her head, and she fixes him with a very droll look that doesn’t suit the bloody nose she’s still got. He shoves a hand into his pocket and fishes out his handkerchief, because the blood on her lip still looks wet.

‘I know six Jameses already,’ she tells him, and blinks at the handkerchief before taking it, folding it carefully around her finger and dabbing it to the blood. ‘You got any other names?’

‘Well, my full name is James Montgomery Falsworth, but my friends call me Monty,’ he says, and she snorts, whining when it hurts her nose.

He’s overcome with an urge to kiss that nose, because it’s small and sweet and he thinks it needs kissing. But he stays on his knees, holding one of her hands in both of his, smoothing his thumb over the one bit of her palm not grazed to all hell.

‘Monty,’ she says, and _oh_ , the sound of his name on her tongue, that’s dangerous. ‘I like that. But am I a friend?’

There’s something of a smile playing on her mouth and he hums.

‘I don’t know your name,’ he replies, and raises an eyebrow. ‘How can we be friends if I don’t have a name to call you?’

There’s something not her name on her tongue, he thinks, because she hesitates, and then she smiles properly, and she’s _beautiful_. His heart doesn’t flutter in his chest so much as it does _shudder_ , and he knows he’s gone. Whatever spell she’s cast on him, enchantress as she is, she’s caught him. She’s won.

‘Heather,’ she says, ‘Heather Grace Martin.’ A breath and then, ‘but you could call me yours, if you’d like.’

His jaw drops, and then he starts laughing. After a moment, she joins in, and everything feels right with the world.

‘Come on,’ he says, when he’s got his breath back, ‘come on, I’ll walk you home. It won’t do for you to walk yourself home like this.’

‘It’s a twenty minute walk,’ she says, ‘we’re on the edge of town.’

‘I’ve got time,’ he says, and rocks back up onto his heels and then to his feet, extends his hands down to her.

‘Liar,’ she scoffs, but takes his offered hands and when she stands, she barely reaches his chin.

She’s _tiny_. She’s so small. She’d fit perfectly under his arm, would tuck perfectly into the curve of his shoulder. _Oh no_.

‘Goodness!’ she laughs, when she lifts her chin to look him in the eye. ‘Do you have to be that tall?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ he replies, laughing, and offers her his arm. ‘Come on, let’s get you home. Which way are we going?’

She tucks her hand into his elbow, and points him in the direction. They stroll, and she occasionally dabs at her nose and lip, wrinkling both when she finds fresh blood.

‘I’m real sorry,’ she says, about halfway home. ‘I’ve ruined your handkerchief.’

‘Bollocks to the handkerchief,’ he says, and then goes red when he realises he swore. ‘That is to say – I mean – ‘

She laughs, and squeezes his arm. ‘Dad swears worse than that,’ she assures him. ‘’Course, it’s only when he thinks I can’t hear him. But he swears worse.’

He smiles, and rests his hand over hers, squeezes, and they finish the walk with easy chatter. She lives in one of the worker’s cottages, as she’d said, on the very edge of town, a sweet little place with flowers under the windowsill and faded paint on the door. It’s a stout brick building, and he’s sure they’ve not got indoor plumbing yet. If – if – no, no. That’s ridiculous, Monty, you stop right there.

You stop that.

‘Here,’ she says, when they reach the gate. ‘This is me. I’m – I think Dad’s got a few handkerchiefs he’s never used, I’ll get you one, to replace this one. You won’t get the blood out, and I’m – ‘

‘Heather,’ he says, and that blush comes back across her cheeks, stronger than before. ‘The handkerchief doesn’t bother me nearly as much as you getting home. I don’t care, I have a dozen more at home, keep it, toss it, I don’t care. I have plenty.’

She nods, mum, and swallows. ‘If you’re sure.’

‘I’m very sure.’

She takes a breath. ‘Right, well. Thank you, for walking me home.’

‘The pleasure was all mine. I’m sorry you had to fall at all.’

There’s a soft smile on her face, and she angles it up to him. ‘Thank you. Get to wherever you’re supposed to be safely, Monty.’

Another shudder of his heart, and he nods, takes the hand she offers him, and kisses her palm again.

‘I will,’ he assures her. ‘Take care of your hands and face. Make sure you wash them properly. You don’t want any infections.’

‘I’ll be good.’

‘Good.’

He lingers for another few seconds, and then snaps himself to attention, nodding to her.

‘Take care.’

‘And you.’

He smiles, and turns to leave, glancing back after a dozen steps to find her halfway through the door, watching him. When she catches him turning back, she flushes, visible from this distance, and hurries inside.

-0-0-0-

Monty arrives at work in a daze, and his Uncle Charles is giving him a Look before he’s even through the door.

‘James Montgomery,’ he says, and Monty drops his coat onto the back of his chair before dropping himself into the seat.

‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘that’s me.’

Charles waits, and Monty eventually blinks himself out of his stupor and looks at his uncle.

‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘I had to walk a girl home. She tripped and there was blood all over her face. I couldn’t let her walk home alone now, come along, Uncle.’

Charles raises an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t say a word,’ he says, and leans over the desk.

He’s not shaved for several days, and though the beard suits him, it doesn’t suit him nearly as well as the moustache does. Honestly, as Monty looks at him, it doesn’t look like he’s left the building for several days; ink and oil are splattered all over his creased, rolled-sleeved shirt, his tie long gone, and his curls, darker than Monty’s and cropped shorter, are on end as though he’s been around the circuits all week.

‘Have you slept?’ Monty asks.

‘No,’ Charles replies. ‘This girl, she a good girl?’

‘I’m not talking to you about a girl,’ Monty tells him, ‘I’m late, but I’m here to work.’

Charles wrinkles his nose, but he runs his hands through his hair and gets to his feet. ‘Alright, lad, let’s get down on the floor. That stamper’s been giving me shit all day, you’ve got thinner hands than me; I need you to take a look.’

Monty rolls his sleeves and pulls his tie over his head, tossing it onto his coat before following his uncle down the stairs to the factory floor. They don’t talk about the Girl all day, but Monty suspects that Charles is only biding his time until he can catch his nephew unaware and get her name out of him.

When they return to the office at the end of the day to collect their things, he tries again.

‘So this girl you walked home,’ he says.

‘Goodnight, Uncle Charles. Be good and actually _go home_ tonight, will you? Remember, I’m not in until lunchtime tomorrow, and I’ll check with Greenwood that you weren’t in when he got here.’

‘I’ll hide.’

‘I’ll remind him to check behind the printer.’

Charles throws a pen at him. ‘Go home, James.’

Monty throws the pen back, and takes the stairs two a time.

-0-0-0-

Mid-morning the next day, and the door knocks. Heather’s nose is all sorts of bruised, her hands still scabby and rough, and she has a dark smudge of dried blood on her lip, but she answers the door anyway, because she’s alone in the house, her parents both at work, and it might be the postman. They’re not expecting anything, but you never can be sure.

‘Oh,’ she says, when she opens the door and it’s Monty stood there, because she’s still in her nightie and dressing gown, while he’s fully dressed and looking _impeccable._ She can barely take her eyes off him long enough to remember how to use her words. ‘Oh, um, hello.’

He looks taken aback, and frowns a little.

‘Good morning,’ he says, and she tries not to blush at how his eyes flick over her face, watching the way he lingers on her mouth. She’s sure it’s only because of the scab, and not because her mouth is particularly nice to look at.

 ‘Did you get to work alright?’ she asks, twisting the tie for her robe in her hands, ‘I didn’t cost you your job by falling over, did I? I can write letters rather well, I could write to your boss to ask for your job back if you did.’

‘My job is safe,’ he laughs.

She feels her flush coming over her cheeks and for a moment, she stares at her feet before looking up, up, _up_ at him. Damn him for being a head taller than her and a foot besides.

‘Are you _sure_?’ she asks.

‘Absolutely. I work with my uncle, and he’s mad as a box of frogs, certainly, but he would have had me castrated if he thought I’d let you walk home alone with blood all over your face.’

‘I’m glad you walked me home,’ she says, and then she gasps. ‘I’m so rude – are you – are you at work today? Come in, I’ll make you tea. You do drink tea, right?’

‘I’m not at work until noon. But yes, I do, I’m not a total savage,’ he assures her, and she steps aside to let him in.

Her house is small and quaint and it fits her perfectly, fits what, if he’d bothered to imagine it at all, he might have imagined her house to look like. But he’s not imagining anything in particular, just taking the seat she offers him at the table, watching her as she potters about making tea.

‘How’s your face?’ he asks, when the silence drags. ‘Are your hands alright? You made sure they were clean, right?’

She turns to smile at him, reaching for two cups. ‘They’re fine,’ she promises, and puts the cups down to cross to where he sits, holding out her palms for him to inspect. ‘See?’

He holds her fingers, looks at her palms, and she flushes at the intensity of his expression.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘they’re looking better. You really did a number on them, eh?’

‘I suppose so,’ she says, and it comes out a little breathier than she initially intended it to, carrying more weight than she expected.

They stay like that for a few minutes, Monty holding her palms, looking at every scab and crease and bruise, and Heather looking at him. It’s comfortable, somehow, natural, like his hands are made to hold hers, and she knows it’s silly, because that isn’t right, but she opens her mouth to tell him that anyway. She’s interrupted by the kettle’s whistling, and she yanks her hands free to rush and take it off the hob.

As they sit drinking their tea – and Heather pretends like she doesn’t memorise how Monty takes his tea, but she does, and she’ll remember it until she dies, she’s sure – it’s quiet, peaceful and content. This is what it’s like with her parents, she thinks, when she gets up early enough to see it. Just them sitting peacefully together, not saying a word. Sometimes her father will be reading the paper, and her mother might be embroidering. But they’ll be together at the table, drinking tea and looking for all the world like they’ll never be anywhere else.

Monty’s too well-dressed to be at their table, but he fits, somehow, lanky and too-tall and immaculate, a foreign element to the wear and tear of their house, but he belongs here, she thinks. He belongs at their table.

‘Do you like dancing?’ he asks out of nowhere, setting his cup down and tearing his gaze from the window, where the view is spring-dismal, grey clouds and a stiff breeze, to her, still in her nightclothes, her hair a mess.

‘Dancing?’

‘Mm. In a hall.’

‘I’ve never been dancing in a hall. I like dancing to the wireless?’ she offers, in lieu.

‘I’d like to take you dancing. If you’d like to go dancing, that is. You don’t have to, you’re under no obligation at all. I’d just – I’d like to.’

He looks at her like he expects her to say no. Part of her thinks she probably should. Dancing is something you do in the evening, and she’s fifteen, and you don’t go out in the evening like that when you’re fifteen, so her ma says. Especially not with someone who’s still a stranger. But then – then – if she goes dancing with him, he won’t really be a stranger, will he? And it’s not as if they’ll be alone at all, dance halls are full of people. That’s why they’re halls and not just rooms.

‘I’d like that,’ she says, ‘it sounds nice. Are you a good dancer?’

‘I’m passable,’ he says with the kind of self-conscious smile that makes her think that he’s probably going to be really rather good.

So she reaches over the table to touch his hand. ‘I bet you’re good. I’ll be the passable one. I’ve never been told my dancing’s anything.’

‘I’ll teach you,’ he promises, and she smiles.

‘I’ll hold you to it.’

He stays until noon, and then, when the clock strikes twelve, he jumps a mile.

‘Shit!’ he yelps, and then swears again when he realises he swore. ‘Oh – oh – um – I need to go; I’m going to be late for work again. I’ll – Wednesday night, don’t forget!’

She kind of wants to kiss him as he shrugs into his coat, because with her still (still!) in her nightclothes, it seems the right thing to do. Kiss her man before he leaves for work. That seems right. But he’s not her man, and it’s not the early hours of the morning, when his rising from bed woke her.

Slow down, Heather. Slow right down.

He disappears out of the door, and half an hour later, her ma returns from town.

‘You’re looking chipper,’ she says, and eyes her daughter. ‘What have you got planned?’

‘I’m going out on Wednesday night,’ she says, ‘with a friend.’

Her ma hums, and tells her to get dressed.

-0-0-0-

Heather doesn’t see Monty again until Wednesday night, when he arrives at her door at five o’clock on the dot, his hands clasped behind his back and his suit impeccable, again.

‘How many suits do you own?’ she asks, having raced her parents to the door.

‘Too many,’ he says, bashful, ‘you look lovely.’

And she’d hoped so, making sure her hair was curled nicely, and her dress was pressed just right. She didn’t want to look too shabby next to him, though she suspects she will, because there’s no way for her to not.

‘Thank you,’ she says, and feels the heat in her cheeks. ‘That’s nice of you to say.’

‘No one likes a liar,’ he tells her, and for a second, she thinks he’s going to brush his fingers over her cheek, over the rose-red patch of flushed skin and draw attention to it.

But his hand stays at his side, not that he’d have been able to do anything anyway, what with her ma appearing behind her.

‘You didn’t tell us this friend was a boy,’ she says, and Heather’s flush drains too fast.

‘Didn’t I? Oh. Well, he’s a boy, his name’s Monty, and he walked me home after I fell.’

Her mother frowns up at him. ‘He did, did he?’

‘I didn’t stay,’ Monty tells her, ‘I’m afraid I was already late to work, but I didn’t want to leave her walking home alone with blood all over her face.’

She hums, and Heather feels like he’s failed a test.

‘We’re going to be late,’ she says, and gets halfway out of the door before her ma says her name in _that_ tone.

She wrinkles her nose, but turns back with a bland, innocent expression.

‘Ma?’

‘A word.’

She glances up at Monty, apologetic, and follows her ma back into the kitchen.

‘Heather,’ her ma says, and frowns, puts her hands on her hips, crosses her arms, rubs her brow. ‘Listen to me, I want you to – I know he’s – I understand that you’re – do you know what you’re doing?’

‘Ma,’ Heather starts, but Ethel Martin is not fooled for even a second.

‘Heather,’ she repeats. ‘How old is he?’

‘I don’t know?’

‘Where’s he from? Where’s he work? What’s his history?’

Heather refuses to tear up. She refuses. But she still sounds choked when she says, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Then what _do_ you know?’

For a second or three, Heather breathes. ‘His full name’s James Montgomery Falsworth,’ she says, lifting her chin, ‘he works with his uncle in town. He takes his tea with no sugar and only a little milk. He has too many handkerchiefs and he wants to take me dancing. He said he’d teach me.’

Something crosses Ethel’s face then, something dark and conflicted, and Heather worries for Monty still stood at the door. That is, if he’s not bolted.

‘Falsworth?’ she asks. ‘Heather, he’s – God help me, I don’t want you to go dancing with him.’

Heather feels her lip wobbling, feels her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and her eyes stinging, and she swallows past the lump forming in her throat. Her heart, she thinks, it’s her heart in her throat.

‘Ma?’

Ethel has never really told Heather _no_ before, has never really told her she cannot do something if it isn’t something that’ll hurt her or get her into trouble. She doesn’t look like she wants to tell her no now.

‘Heather,’ she says, ‘you’re a hardy little creature, God knows that, but you picked a wrong’un, darling. He’s – the Falsworths aren’t the kind of family us Martins would ever associate with. We’re not – high-bred enough for their company. They’re aristocracy, Heather. I think I remember a story in the paper about the daughter marrying into _royalty_. He doesn’t want to take you dancing because he likes you for your personality.’

 Heather doesn’t understand, and she admits as much through gritted teeth.

‘Does he know how old you are?’ Ethel asks, and Heather shakes her head.

‘I don’t think so.’

Ethel makes a choked noise, like she just swallowed her spit, and then marches for the door.

‘Ma!’

Monty had been retying his shoelaces, but he straightens when he hears Ethel coming, and his expression is open. Hopeful.

‘She’s fifteen,’ Ethel says, and his expression twists.

‘Oh,’ he says, and looks past her to Heather.

He’s gone very pale, and his mouth is twisted into a grimace, his eyes wide and he looks ridiculous, but he doesn’t look horrified. Just surprised. Concerned. He looks very worried indeed, but he’s not horrified.

‘I see,’ he says, when he’s managed to school his features again. ‘I’m not fifteen, Mrs Martin, as I’m sure you’re aware. I’m – I’m nineteen.’

Nineteen! Heather feels her eyes widening, her mouth twisting, her colour draining. _Nineteen!_

Better than twenty-nine, her heart tells her, because Heather is hardy, but not particularly bright. And she’s going to be sixteen in six months. That’s not that long, right? She thinks Monty might wait for her to be sixteen before he takes her dancing, because he seemed to really want to, but then what her ma said echoes behind her ears, and she feels something like doubt begin to gnaw at her belly.

Six months is a long time to wait when you could have any girl you liked. God only knows she’s heard the boys across the street talking about it often enough. Maybe Monty wouldn’t wait.

She realises, when she lifts her head at being addressed, that Monty and her ma had been talking while she’d been mulling it over, chewing her lip, and Monty is smiling. His smile is wonderful, and the doubt in her belly turns into butterflies, into moths fluttering around the flame of the heat in the hand he’s extending to her.

‘Shall we?’ he asks, and she blinks stupidly, but accepts the outstretched hand.

His palm is labour-rough the way her pa’s is, and easily as big, if not bigger. For a second, she boggles at it, at how dark his skin is compared to hers, at the crookedness of his fingers, the sheer size of his hand as it fits itself against hers.

‘Ten,’ he says to Ethel, who folds her arm.

‘Any later, and I’ll have your guts for garters,’ she says, and he beams at her.

‘I’d expect no less,’ he nods, and bids her farewell.

‘Bye, ma,’ Heather says, daring to glance up from Monty’s hand to her mother, who waits in the doorway until they’re past the gate and on the street proper.

Once the door is shut and they’re halfway down the street, hands swinging, Monty starts laughing.

‘You weren’t listening to a word, were you?’ he asks, and she blushes.

 ‘I – no, no I was – I was thinking of other things.’

‘Other things,’ he says, arch, but the way he smiles tells her that he’s just teasing. ‘What other things could you be thinking about?’

He looks genuinely interested for all his teasing, and she wonders if she should tell him. She gets as far as opening her mouth before shaking her head.

‘No,’ she says, ‘no, it doesn’t matter. I was being silly.’

‘I doubt it,’ he says, but doesn’t press, and talks instead of the dance hall he’s taking her to.

If it’s a long walk, Heather doesn’t notice, alternating between watching where she’s going and watching Monty as he talks, easy and gesturing with his free hand. He asks her questions, and she smiles, answers them as best she can.

‘Ah, here we are,’ he says with a nod, and she looks where he’s looking.

The dance hall has popped up in front of them without warning, and she beams, bounces on her heels, because the doors are open and there is music playing inside and there’s laughter and light and colour and she takes it in before pressing close to his side.

‘What if I make a fool of myself?’

‘We’ll blame me,’ he assures her, and squeezes her hand, leads her inside.

-0-0-0-

Heather’s leaning on his arm in a very, very wonderful sort of way, holding on as if his elbow is the only thing that’s keeping her upright, and he’s really rather in love with that. She’d been perfect all night, laughing and smiling and squealing when he lifted her. An older couple, friends of his uncle’s, had been there and helped him teach her how to dance – but the lifts remained his alone. His hands had been the only hands allowed on her waist, and he was a little too fond of that for his own good.

So now, as they walk home, it seems natural to ease his arm out from under her and wrap it around her shoulders, pull her that little bit closer to him.

‘That was fun,’ she says for the fifteenth time. Her face is still flushed with the heat of the hall, but the cool air of the evening has let her get her breath back, and she’s dabbed at her hairline until he’d never have believed she sweated at all.

‘So you keep telling me,’ he says, ‘I’m glad. I haven’t had that much fun dancing since before Vic married.’

‘Your sister, right?’

Monty nods, and rubs his thumb over her shoulder. Every step jars her ear against his side, but she can hear his heart beating when their steps align well enough. It’s hard, with the difference in leg length, but he’s doing his best to keep her stride.

‘She used to take me dancing as soon as I was old enough,’ he says, and she smiles.

‘I’d like to meet her one day, I think.’

Monty makes a noise in his throat like he’s about to agree, and then he pauses, changes his mind and doesn’t say anything at all. So they continue walking, making idle talk but often walking in a comfortable, easy silence, the kind of silence Heather hears between her parents, where words are superfluous, and she likes it, likes walking with Monty like this, under his arm with the stars just beginning to shine above them. It’s nice, really, really nice.

The clock is just striking ten as Monty knocks on the door, and Ethel opens it, dressed for bed but still looking wide awake.

‘Ten,’ Monty says with a nod of his head, ‘as promised.’

She eyes them, and then smiles, acquiescing to her daughter’s clear happiness.

‘You had fun then?’

‘So much fun,’ Heather agrees, and goes to cross the threshold but turns back at the last second. ‘I’d like to go on a walk with you,’ she says to him then, and his ears go red.

‘A walk?’

‘Mm. I liked walking home with you. I’d like to go on a proper walk. We could go along the canal. Or just around town. Anything, really.’

Monty can feel his cheeks going pink, but he nods. ‘I’d like that too,’ he agrees.

Heather beams, and squeezes his hand one last time, but before he lets go, he drags her hand closer and bends to kiss her palm, worn sore by gripping his so tight.

She laughs, and her fingertips brush his cheek too softly when she pulls her hand away. Ethel is looking at him with an expression he can’t describe, but he thinks maybe where he failed a test four hours ago, he’s passed it now.

‘Goodnight,’ he says, and nods to her.

‘Goodnight,’ she replies, and her smile is soft enough that his heart does something uncomfortable and probably dangerous, leaping up into his throat and dropping between his feet at the same time, squeezing and loosening and being generally a nuisance, because that smile _does_ things to a man’s heart that it shouldn’t have to suffer.

‘Goodnight, Mrs Martin,’ he says, clawing for some semblance of dignity in the face of his red cheeks and awkwardly familiar kiss.

‘Goodnight, Monty,’ she says, and doesn’t slam the door on him once Heather’s out of the way.

It’s only as he’s walking the last half-mile back to his parents’ house that he says, ‘shit,’ to himself, very loudly, and very enthusiastically.

For several yards, he swears to himself, and finally tells himself to grow up.

‘You’re a man, James Montgomery,’ he tells himself. ‘You’ve seen her three times, you are not in love with her, you stop that.’

But saying it aloud just makes it real, and he knows he’s in trouble because his heart does the thing again, only now his tummy’s in on the action too.

‘James,’ he tells himself an hour later as he stares at his reflection in the mirror, ‘you’re a fucking idiot.’

But he’s known that for years.


	2. The One With The First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It rains, Heather turns sixteen, and Monty makes a good impression.

There are dark clouds from one horizon to the other when Monty next calls on Heather, late in the afternoon and still in his work suit. There’s a spot of ink on his nose, and his hair’s come completely free of the Brylcreem he’d put it under that morning, the curls errant and flyaway.

‘Sorry for the state of me,’ he says, dusting down his jacket. 'I came straight from work; one of the machines was refusing to behave.’

Heather smiles and steps aside to let him in, reaching up to take his jacket and getting a brief flash of his braces before his rolling shoulders rights his waistcoat and hides it.

It’s an odd detail to notice, but endearing, something small and human and so peculiarly quintessentially Monty that she wants to see it again. Not now, but again, after she’s forgotten how wonderfully mussed and unkempt her partner is.

Her boyfriend? Was dancing a date? Does he want to go on a date with her? Be her boyfriend?

'You’re thinking something good, I hope,’ Monty teases, and Heather starts.

She realises, belatedly, that she’s still standing there clutching his jacket in both hands and staring at his shoulder. Flushing from hairline to behind her ears and down to her collar, she whirls on her heel to hang his jacket up and leaps a mile when his fingertips brush the lobster-hot shell of her ear.

‘Did I say something wrong?’ he asks, and when she turns back, he’s the other side of the hall, picking at his nails.

‘No,’ she assures him, with a bright, wide smile. ‘No, not at all! I was just – I was just – I was thinking, um. Something good. I think. I hope.’

Monty smiles and there’s something in his eyes that makes her think her hope is not misplaced.

‘Oh? I hope it was good, too.’

She leads him through to the kitchen then, makes them both tea and they sit side-by-side at the table, looking out over the grey garden before Ethel comes back from work.

‘Look at you,’ she scoffs at Monty, kissing Heather’s hair. ‘You’re going dancing like that?’

‘I thought I’d take her on that walk,’ Monty says, and Heather stares at him.

Ethel has warmed to him, but she hasn’t warmed _that_ much, and she frowns at him.

‘I’m not sure a walk is a good idea,’ she says, but Heather insists, and Ethel had promised, after Monty had brought her daughter home at the agreed time and not a minute later, that she would make an effort to trust him to be able to look after her. ‘Well, alright. But I want you home by ten again, at the latest. Else I won’t let you out again at all.’

‘I’ll endeavour to have her home by nine-thirty, Mrs Martin,’ Monty says, placating, gentle, all aristocratic vowels and pleasing consonants. Ethel is reminded, briefly, of his parents. ‘The weather looks like it could turn, and I don’t want her out in the rain if it turns completely.’

‘Then why go at all?’ Ethel asks, and Monty hears the challenge.

‘Because she asked to go on a walk,’ he replies with a smile, glancing at Heather before she turns to stare at him. ‘And I wouldn’t be much of a potential boyfriend if I didn’t take her on one at the first available opportunity.’

Heather looks at him with a curious expression, and he barely has time to register it, let alone decipher it before Ethel is _supposing_ that he can take her on a walk, so long as he brings her home at the first sign of rain.

Naturally, they are a good twenty minutes from home when the heavens burst without any warning, lightning flashing on the treeline and thunder rumbling towards them a second later.

‘Christ!’ Monty laughs as Heather squeals, shrinking away from it.

The short sleeves of her cardigan do nothing to protect her from the lashing rain, and Monty shrugs out of his coat and drapes it over her head, holding it against the direction the rain’s coming, and she peers up at him when the rain is suddenly stopped, at least for a moment.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she says, because he’s just in his shirt sleeves and waistcoat, and the shirt’s already clinging to his skin, white cotton the same peach as his skin. ‘You’ll catch a cold!’

 ‘Oh, hush,’ he snorts, and drops the jacket to sit over her shoulders. ‘I’ll be fine, I’ve been out in worse in less. You’re in a dress and a cardigan, _you’ll_ catch a cold.’

The jacket is far too big for her, several inches too long on the sleeve and hanging to mid-thigh, but she wraps herself up in it, tucking her hands under her arms to keep them safe. Already, her hair’s plastered to her face and neck, finger waves lost. Her cheeks are flushed, her mouth red, her eyes bright, bright green, and she’s beautiful.

If Monty were a different man, he might kiss her there, blinking up at him as she waits for him to snap out of the fugue staring at her has put him in. If he were a different man, he’d have kissed her when he took her dancing. But he is not a different man, and he ushers her back the way they’d come, lifting her over the puddles forming in the dips in the path.

She laughs once and says, ‘you can’t resist picking me up, can you?’

He feels himself flush scarlet, and her expression shifts, warms.

‘No,’ he admits. ‘You seem to enjoy it.’

‘I do,’ she says, and they stop in the middle of the path then, because she’s reaching up to touch his flushed cheek with her fingertips. ‘I enjoy it a lot. It’s – it’s nice, being picked up like that.’

His fingertips are chilled against the back of her hand, warmed by the protection of his jacket, and he turns his face into her palm, kisses it. The scabs are mostly gone now, because she’d been good and washed her hands properly, and there’s barely a sign, a little over a week later, of her having fallen at all.

‘Come on,’ he says, when the moment has dragged too long and he can feel the rain dripping down the back of his neck, ‘I’d better get you home.’

She’s barely any drier than he is by the time he gets her home, and he knocks hard on the door, leaning over her to do so, trying to shield her from any further rain. It doesn’t much work, but it’s the thought that counts.

‘Get in,’ Ethel says as soon as the door’s open, ‘the pair of you, in you get.’

Heather’s father appears in the doorway to the kitchen as they stumble over the step, laughing and praising the dry interior, and Monty freezes for half a second. He knows, from what Heather had told him as they walked to and from dancing, that John had served in the Great War, and it’s obvious in the way he stands, as tall as Monty and dark with the memory of it. He must have come in from work not long before the rain started, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbow and his waistcoat and trousers mismatched, his hair a mess, raked back with his fingers and holding its shape with the last of the whatever he’d put in it that morning. Brylcreem, Monty’d wager, because that’s what everyone in these parts uses.

‘You must be Monty,’ he says, and his voice doesn’t match his face, sounding too soft and too pleasant.

But for all it doesn’t match, Monty understands; his uncle is the same, deliberately soft to belie the terror lurking under his skin.

‘I am, sir,’ Monty replies with a nod of his head, rain dripping from his hair and nose and chin and ears and fingertips and pooling in the toes of his oxfords, and John watches him before approaching and extending his hand.

‘John Martin.’

‘James Falsworth,’ Monty replies, because he ought to introduce himself formally, despite having not done so to Ethel, who is running a towel over her daughter’s hair and chastising her for not dressing for the rain she knew was coming.

John’s hand is warm and labour-rough, grip war-tight around Monty’s knuckles, and Monty shakes back as good as he gets before his hand is released.

‘You’re about my size,’ John says as Heather protests the rat’s nest her mother’s making of her hair. ‘Get those clothes off and borrow mine while you wait out the storm. It’ll have passed by morning.’

Heather fights free of the towel and peers at her father.

‘Pa?’ she asks, ‘does that mean Monty’s staying?’

‘I’m not sending him back out in that,’ John says. ‘It won’t do to send the Falsworths’ son back to them with a terrible cold now, would it?’

Ethel makes a sound like she’s biting back laughter, and Monty suspects there are a thousand things about his parents that he doesn’t know, but he trusts that they aren’t reflecting badly on him. He glances at Heather, who shrugs with an expression alone, and then John’s ushering Monty upstairs to the master room, getting him a towel and pulling out trousers and a shirt, well-worn but well-looked after too, and he thanks John for the kindness.

John eyes him for a moment.

‘You look a lot like your uncle,’ he says, ‘I’ve seen him sometimes, about town. When I was – after I came home, there were some lads from his unit in the beds near mine. They said he was a good officer, for what it was worth.’

Monty swallows, and chances a smile. He’s shivering for the chill of his wet clothes clinging to him, and he feels naked under John’s too-level stare.

‘He’s a good man,’ he agrees. ‘He works hard to give our men a fair wage, and we – we – I’m sorry, we don’t talk about the war. At least, he doesn’t talk about the war with me.’

John huffs out a laugh.

‘I wouldn’t think he would,’ John says, and then the shadows leave his face, what of them there were, and Monty marvels over how young he looks without them, and how old he’d seemed before.

-0-0-0-

Heather stays downstairs with him long after Ethel and John have retreated to bed.

‘Shouldn’t you go to bed, too?’ Monty asks, but Heather just tucks her toes deeper into the folds of the blanket and rests her head on his shoulder, holding his arm around her.

‘No,’ she says, ‘I can sleep down here, keep you company. ‘Sides, I’m cold.’

‘That’s why you should go to bed,’ Monty teases, and rubs his thumb over her arm, since it’s there. ‘Go to bed and sleep and be wrapped up warm so you don’t catch a cold.’

‘But then you’ll catch a cold’ she counters, ‘’cause you’re down here all by yourself.’

There’s no arguing with her, Monty realises, and he rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything further on the matter. Instead, they fall silent, listening to the rain outside, and Heather eventually takes up his hand, plays with his fingers.

‘I think Pa likes you,’ she murmurs, quiet, her breath hot and damp against his bicep. ‘He definitely doesn’t hate you.’

‘That’s good,’ Monty replies.

‘Ma’s in-between. Doesn’t like that you’re – um – older than me. Or that you’re a Falsworth, like that means _anything_ at all! But she likes you for you, and I think it’s probably hard for her. She wants me to be happy.’

‘She’s your mother,’ Monty hums. ‘She wants you safe, too.’

‘You’re safe,’ she tells him, and he’s fairly certain she just kissed his arm through his sleeve.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he decides to go down the safest – ha! – route and not say anything at all, just humming softly and letting her settle against him.

It doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep, and he leaves her there for a few minutes, just enjoying the sleep-deep, easy huffs of her breath against his arm, feeling her heart beating against the crease of his elbow, and the rain continues to patter on the window. It could be perfect, he thinks, if she was facing the other way, if her legs were over his lap instead of the other end of the couch. That’d be perfect. But this is perfect too, in a dozen other ways, and he feels his eyelids beginning to droop, so he eases out from under her, dragging his arm around to rest around her back, his other hand tucking under her knees.

‘Up we go,’ he whispers, and lifts her up, all one-hundred-and-ten pounds of her, cradling her easily against his chest, her head on his shoulder.

She sighs, and goes limp, her hand coming up to knot into his shirt, steadying herself.

Her bedroom is dark when he manages to wiggle the door open, and it takes him a few tentative moments to navigate the space in the barest slivers of moonlight, but he finds her bed easily enough, and sets her down in it. She’d put her pyjamas on after drying off, and she accepts him pulling the covers out from beneath her to drape them over and tuck them in around her. A flash of lightning illuminates the room and his heart does that thing again, catching in his throat and melting between his bare feet and he breathes for a moment. When the moment’s passed and the room is plunged back into darkness, he strokes a lock of hair from her face, tucks it behind her ear, studies the highlights of her cheekbone, the delicate arch of her eyebrow, the full pout of her lips as they curl into a smile.

‘Goodnight, sweetheart,’ he whispers, and retreats to the door, glancing back only as he turns to shut the door behind him.

He falls asleep on the couch and wakes to her sat in the niche of his folded body, leaning back against his thighs and playing with his tangled curls.

‘Were you watching me sleep?’ he asks, sleep-rough and slurring Birmingham-thick.

‘Yes,’ she replies, and rubs the shell of his ear as he twists his upper half to lie flat on the couch, his legs staying where they are to keep her supported. ‘Does it bother you?’

He shakes his head, scrubs his hands over his face. Her hand is on his chest now, his heart, measuring his pulse and that curious expression back on her face. He watches her for a second, and she watches him back.

She swallows, looks like she’s about to say something, but at the last second changes her mind and just smiles instead, bright and beautiful and still morning-sleepy.

‘Come on, Sleepy, it’s time to get up, ma’s making breakfast.’

But she seems reluctant to move, and it takes them almost a solid minute to get to their feet and stumble blindly through the door to the kitchen, where John is already at the table, dressed for work with the paper spread out in front of him, and Ethel is in her dressing gown still, her hair still pinned into curls. They both turn to look at their daughter and her guest when they enter, and share a private smile before returning to their tasks.

‘Good morning,’ John says, and Monty nods to him.

‘Morning, sir, Mrs Martin.’

‘Good morning, Monty,’ Ethel replies, and lifts her arm when Heather wriggles her way in beside her to give her a squeeze. ‘Did you sleep well? You’re a little big for the couch.’

‘I’ve slept in the office,’ he says, ‘at work, you know? We don’t have a couch in there, just uncomfortable chairs.’

Heather, who’d made her way to the table, reaches up to rub her hand across the back of his neck the way she’d obviously seen her mother do to her father, and he bites back the shiver the action sends rippling up his back.

‘You shouldn’t sleep like that,’ she chides, tugging on his collar to get him to sit in the chair he’s next to, ‘it’ll do your back no good at all.’

He chuckles, soft, and assures her that it’ll be fine, he’s only ever slept in the office once or twice.

She continues rubbing the back of his neck for a few moments, turning her conversation to her mother, and Monty tunes out, going a little too loose-limbed under the warmth of her fingers against the jut of his spine. It must show on his face, because John looks at him with something close to a smile playing around his mouth, and Monty feels himself going red, but John’s mouth stays shut and the smile gets turned to the paper without another glance.

-0-0-0-

Heather kisses him after a walk one pleasant afternoon, a few months after their first meeting. It’s just a little thing, a chaste brush of her mouth against his, but he pulls back, puts his hand on her shoulder.

‘That’s not appropriate,’ he says.

‘How is not appropriate?’ she asks, and he looks at her like she’s got an extra head.

‘You’re _fifteen_ ,’ he reminds her, ‘and I’m – I’m – I’m very much _not_ fifteen.’

‘It’s only a few months,’ she protests, ‘and then I’ll be sixteen. No one is going to know, and no one would care.’

Everyone would care, Monty knows, but he keeps his mouth shut.

‘Heather, humour me,’ he says instead. ‘Just – sixteen, okay? Not a moment before.’

She curls her lip, but lets go of his lapels all the same, and he breathes a sigh that makes her feel sick.

‘That bad, huh?’ she grumbles.

She’s not looking at him, but she knows he’s rolled his eyes, so she starts walking again.

‘Darling, listen,’ he starts, catches her hand and pulls her to a stop. She snatches her hand away, but doesn’t leave. ‘Look at me, please?’

She tries to avoid looking at him, but the heat of his puppy-eyes burns in her ears, and she glances up at him.

‘I’m looking,’ she says.

‘It’s not that I wouldn’t like to kiss you,’ he explains, and doesn’t do her indignity of crouching or doubling over or otherwise making their heights a little more level. ‘Because God knows I would. But I also do not want to go to _jail_ over doing so.’

Heather swallows, and her eyes go to the ground. She hasn’t ever felt like a child around him, because he has always treated her as an equal, but right now she feels like she’s nine all over again, scolded for something ridiculous and silly that she shouldn’t have done. She’d not done it again, though. And now, like then, she knows she’ll not try to kiss him before her birthday again.

‘Then I already know what my present from you is,’ she says, and smiles when he laughs.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I suppose you do.’

But the way he looks at her makes her think she has no idea what his present to her will be.

-0-0-0-

They sit on the step and look out over the garden. Her father is snoring, audible from both the stairs behind them and the open window above, and occasionally, Monty will find it amusing and huff out a laugh that shakes her head, resting on his shoulder as it is. It’s a comfortable position to be in, pressed close to his side with his arm around her. There’s a slight chill now the sun’s gone down, but it’s still so warm, so perfect that she doesn’t want to move for the rest of her life.

Monty’s shirt smells of cigarettes and tea and his skin is flush-warm beneath where her fingers pick at the leg of his trousers, at the loose dandelion seeds that cling from the brief tussle in the grass he’d had with one of her cousins, laughing all the way. That, after only months of knowing her, he’d be willing to get covered in grass stains and dirt to entertain her kid cousins, means a lot to her.

‘Today’s been nice,’ she says, and he rubs his thumb over her shoulder.

‘Yeah?’

‘Mm. Very nice. It was nice having you here. I’m glad you came.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed your cousin trying to bite my leg off for the world,’ he assures her, and she chuckles, turns her face into his collar.

He obligingly stretches his legs to give her twisting body room to get her legs over his, draping them like his lap is the only place her legs could ever rest.

‘You comfortable?’ he asks, and she considers it.

‘No,’ she says, and gets to her feet.

There’s some scrambling, and he steadies her with a hand on her hip that sears through the light cotton of her dress. He stays sitting on the step, watching her with a raised eyebrow as she scurries back inside and returns with a blanket.

‘Lie with me?’ she asks, and he snorts, gets to his feet.

‘You’ve been waiting to say it like that,’ he accuses.

‘I might have,’ she admits, and spreads the blanket out, sits and pats the space next to her, smiling and cuddling up when he obligingly lays down. ‘This is better.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ he hums, and his hand settles over hers on his belly.

They lie there quietly for a few minutes, his thumb rubbing over her hand and her fingers almost tickling as they stroke small circles over his shirt.

‘Monty?’ she asks, and he smiles when she lifts her head, shifting onto her elbow to look at him.

‘Yes?’

‘I'm sixteen,’ she tells him. ‘Have been all day. You haven’t kissed me.’

‘How awful of me,’ he says, with an easy grin, ‘to not kiss you in front of your family.’

‘Truly awful,’ she agrees, and she’s pouting again, all red mouth and doe eyes, and he wishes she wouldn’t burn his insides like that, it’s really rather cruel. ‘Some present.’

He snorts; genuine pearls are not something to dismiss, and her teasing is given away by the brightness of her smile.

‘Heather,’ he says, but it comes out far softer than he means it to.

The air shifts, softens, and her gaze flicks to his mouth, back to his eyes, and he finds himself watching her mouth when she licks her lips, a nervous flick of her tongue that goes straight to his chest, blanketing his heart in the heat of his affection. She swallows, and looks at his mouth again.

‘Are you going to kiss me?’ she asks, ‘it’s rather rude to make the birthday girl do it, you know.’

‘I would have thought the birthday girl would want to have the run of it,’ he replies, but tangles a hand in her hair anyway.

‘The birthday girls wants her stupid boyfriend to kiss her already,’ she breathes, brushing the words against his mouth, and he grins.

‘If she’d shut up, he would,’ Monty tells her, but it’s barely a breath before he’s kissing her.

She sinks into him, submits completely, and he pushes up onto an elbow to better kiss her, slow and soft and going at the pace she needs him to go. For a first kiss, a proper kiss, it’s not so bad; there are no bumps of noses, and she only bites his lip once. Her hand slides up from his belly to his neck, to his hair, and her elbow begins to give, which he is not at all surprised at, because his arms are longer than hers, and stronger besides. She drags him with her, refusing to part for a second, and he cradles her head when she goes flat on her back. Giggling against his mouth, she loops her arms around his neck, kisses him again, and he goes, lets her kiss him how she likes and kisses her back as best he can, guiding, because she really doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing and kissing can be _so_ much better.

‘Breathe,’ he reminds her, when he realises she’s not. ‘You’ve got a nose, don’t you?’

She laughs against his mouth, breathless, giddy little giggles, and he rubs their noses together while she gathers herself. It’s comfortable like this, braced on his elbow and hand half over her, close enough to feel the huff of her breath and count the flecks of colour in her eyes, bottle green and sea green and hazelnut brown around her pupil, the last of which he’d never noticed before. The last of her summer freckles are still lingering on her nose, barely visible in the shadow, but he knows they’re there, and counts them all the same.  

‘So,’ he says, when she’s got her breath back, and then forgets what he was going to say because her eyes are dark and her mouth kiss-plush, and he’s _allowed_ to kiss her now.

‘So,’ she echoes, a whisper he can taste against his lips, lemonade and cake and _Heather_.

‘The birthday girl got her kiss,’ he manages, scrambling for the words. ‘Did it pass muster?’

‘Mm, you know, I’m not quite sure. I think you’d better kiss me again so I can tell for certain.’

He chuckles, and her fingers knead at the nape of his neck, knotting kitten-content into the short crop of his hair, her smile so aware of itself that it’s barely a smile at all.

‘You think so?’

‘Mm. I read a book about science once, and it said you have to do everything more than once. You might not have the right result if you only do it once. What if I only _thought_ that was a fantastic kiss, eh? What if it was, in actual fact, a _terrible_ kiss, and you had me fooled? You’d be a truly terri – ‘

The goading works; he’s kissing her again, less delicately, less gentle, less everything except for the earnest desire to _kiss_ her, and she’s really rather all for it, tightens her grip and drags him as close as she can get him, enjoying the harshness of it for a few moments before forcing him to slow, to gentle, and he goes willingly, and they smile against each other’s mouths for several seconds before she pecks his lips and tips her head away to grin.

‘Acceptable,’ she teases, and bumps their noses together. ‘I suppose you’ll do, if you keep kissing me nicely.’

‘Nicely, eh?’

‘Nicely,’ she agrees, ‘I like the nice kisses.’

He makes her show him what constitutes a “nice kiss,” and she pushes him over onto his back to take over, to kiss him nicely. And it is nice, it’s very nice, at least until she begins to fall asleep against him.

‘Oh, dear,’ he sighs, grinning to himself. ‘Let’s get you up to bed before you fall asleep.’

‘I’m fine,’ she sighs, but she can’t keep her eyes open.

It’s been a long day, he assures her as he helps her sit upright, getting his arms under her to pick her up and she buries her face in his half-open collar, pressing a kiss to his neck as her breathing evens out. She’s completely gone by the time he gets her to her bed, and he sits at her side for several minutes, watching her sleep. Quite aware it’s weird to do it, he ducks down to kiss her temple and smoothes her hair before tugging her covers over her and heading back downstairs to the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Faceclaims for the fam:  
> Heather's ma is Helena Bonham Carter (esp the Enid and King's Speech variant)  
> Her pa is Joseph Fiennes doing his thing  
> Monty's uncle is Jude Law with his Waston 'stashe bc lbr here guys

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from Snow Patrol's Set the Fire to the Third Bar.


End file.
